The Contact Lens Spectrum Millennium Report

This report provides a comprehensive review of
the past revolutions in contact lens wear in addition to forecasting the future of the
industry.

We estimate, using round numbers, that there are about 80 million contact lens wearers
on the planet (according to Holden, et al.), with nearly 33 million in the United States
alone. This nearly 12 percent of the U.S. population includes 50 percent of those who need
vision correction between the ages of 18 and 34. There are more contact lenses for more
purposes today that are safer and better manufactured than ever before. Investment in
contact lens research, manufacturing and marketing is strong. In the early part of this
century, the market for contact lenses worldwide will be $3 billion. The market for
contact lens care solutions at the manufacturers' level will be approaching $1 billion.
Nearly 90 percent of these sales are for soft contact lenses. Only about 10 to 15 percent
of patients routinely use their lenses for extended wear, although perhaps twice this
percentage occasionally sleep with their lenses on. Roughly five percent of contact lens
wearers in the United States use daily disposables, and we estimate that 40 percent use
one- and two-week disposables. Twenty-five percent use planned replacement, and 30 percent
remain in conventional lenses. Table 1 shows you how a sample of our readers select
contact lenses for their patients.

Developments and Trends that Will Help Contact Lenses in the 21st
Century

Widespread knowledge of and availability of contact lenses

Improved tear understanding, testing and treatment of dry eye

Advances in contact lens materials and surface chemistry

Reduced contact lens complications

Baby boomer children will consumem contact lenses in the early 21st century

Increased numbers of presbyopes

The Current Situation

Daily wear soft contact lenses recommended for disposing every two weeks are a commonly
prescribed modality and cost the practitioner about $10 to $15 per six-pack. Extended wear
lenses for monthly replacement cost about twice that amount. Fees for contact lens care
have eroded and therefore, net profit to the practitioner for lens care is reduced per
patient in most instances. Thus, efficient care is essential, even for complicated cases.
If the average patient pays $250 to $300 per year for contact lenses and care products,
then the practitioner has about $50 per patient overhead and nets about $100 per patient.
This allows the patient to pay about $150 to $200 per year for goods including their
common rate of poor compliance with lens care solutions and lenses. Of course, these are
very rough estimates. It is also estimated that spectacles cost just over $100 per year,
contact lenses cost $260 per year and LASIK costs about $2,000 per eye. Lower cost LASIK
is increasingly more available.

Despite the higher risk of losing best corrected vision compared to contact lenses,
LASIK continues to find an increasing following. Of the total approximated 140 million
people in the U.S. vision care market, about 21 percent will be wearing contact lenses in
the year 2000, and about 1.5 percent will have had laser vision correction (CL Spectrum
Supp., May 1999). Forbes magazine estimated that one million people would have their eyes
lasered in 1999 when it described the "what amounts to a commission" paid by
surgeons to the "referring optometrist."

Disposable contact lens unit sales have increased about 30 percent per year in the
1990s. We are approaching 75 percent of contact lens wearers in the United States who use
disposable or planned replacement dispensing, including growth of one-day disposable lens
use. This percentage of one-day disposable contact lens use should grow even further as it
has in the United Kingdom, where debit card use is more accepted and there is more fear of
contact lens solution problems.

Substantial growth of specialty soft disposable lenses including torics, colored lenses
and bifocals is in action. New fits for soft toric contact lenses have enjoyed double
digit growth in the past few years because the lenses are better and available in planned
replacement and disposable pricing. Most of us were wrong when we predicted bifocal
contact lens growth would never happen. In early 1999, new bifocal lens fits were up about
300 percent primarily due to the introduction of the disposable Vistakon Acuvue Bifocal.
Other planned replacement bifocals, such as Sunsoft's Additions, and disposables such as
CIBA's Focus Progressive, have pushed this bifocal lens growth spurt even further. There
is certainly a paradigm shift in the bifocal and multifocal area, such that now, rather
than routinely saying bifocal contact lenses don't work, practitioners are trying them
even before monovision.

Developments that Will Hinder Contact Lenses in the 21st
Century

Refractive surgery advances

Teenagers sharing contact lenses

Medical treatment of myopia

Genetic treatment of myopia

Patients Want Contact Lenses

And why are contact lenses so rarely recommended by most eye care practitioners? In a
recent survey in Australia, practitioners assumed patients were biased toward spectacles
and patients were passive about contact lenses. Patients stated that they wanted advice
from practitioners about contact lenses, but didn't get it or got negative comments.

How ironic is it that patients want to know about contact lenses but practitioners,
fearing failure, don't want to volunteer that information? Patients want contact lenses.
In fact, 66 percent or more of them want extended wear if their practitioner recommends
it. But practitioners fear that complications, chair time cost and the price of some
lenses, including extended wear lenses inhibit their use. At least 20 percent of current
soft contact lens wearers occasionally sleep with their lenses in their eyes.

In the United States, about half of the vision care population between the ages of 18
and 34 wear contact lenses, but in most of the rest of the world, this figure is far
smaller. Perhaps this is because, although U.S. contact lens practitioner education has
been criticized recently, and despite the International Association of Contact Lens
Educators' substantial efforts, the United States' education is still more complete.
Certainly, cost is not a reason to not recommend contact lenses given the cost of
spectacles these days and the low percentage of patients who drop out of contact lens wear
due to cost.

Important 1999 and late 90s Events

Bausch & Lomb's introduction of Purevision (100 DK/t) silicone-hydrogel contact
lenses in the United States for seven-day extended wear and CIBA Vision's introduction of
their Focus Night and Day lens outside the United States was significant. While these
lenses allow extended wear with no corneal hypoxia-induced complications, practitioners
fear of extended wear ulcers, price and lack of consumer advertising will lead to limited
acceptance of the new extended wear. It's expected that approval for 30-day wear in the
United States, consumer advertising and the expected publication of fewer corneal ulcers
with these lenses will spur increased use.

The CCLRU reports in one study that five percent of spectacle wearers and 11 percent of
one-day disposable lens wearers report drying symptoms and there is no increased adverse
reaction rate for 30 versus seven days of extended wear with new silicone-hydrogel
extended wear lenses.

Mail-order companies sold more contact lenses and more Internet contact lens sources
were introduced, as practitioners struggled to compete with them. Practitioners report
lowering their lens fees, educating patients about the risks of using mail-order sources
and using private label contact lenses.

ANSI is proposing new in-office disinfection guidelines, which can be obtained from the
AOA Contact Lens Section.

Menicon, the first Japanese contact lens manufacturer to enter the U.S. market (in
1991), decided to temporarily reduce U.S. operations in early 2000. Their extended wear
Menicon Z study goes forward.

Unilens' EMA and Blanchard's Quattro added to their arsenals of presbyopic options.

Akorn's D.E.T. (dry eye test) with a more carefully manufactured fluorescein strip,
developed by Dr. Don Korb, et al., is said to allow more accurate fluorescein tear break
measurement and 95 percent reproducibility.

According to a survey reported by Howard Purcell, O.D., of the American Academy of
Optometry (AAO) Section on Cornea and Contact Lens Diplomates, the most important issues
to contact lens practitioners are: managed care, the number of contact lens wearers, dry
eye, patient compliance, refractive surgery, presbyopia, trivializing contact lenses,
fees, specialty contact lenses and RGP contact lens prescribing.

Speculations

Soft toric contact lens manufacturer sales are expected to grow at a rate of 13 percent
per year through the year 2,003.Bifocal and multifocal soft contact lens manufacturer
sales are expected to grow from about $16 million in 1998 to $184 million in 2003.
Cosmetic lens sales are expected to grow from $143 million in 1998 to $230 million in
2003.

Our consulting editors mentioned improved correction of presbyopia, including for
refractive surgery patients, as commonplace with contact lenses in the future. They expect
to dispense one-day disposable and extended wear contact lenses as well as the same
products for astigmatic correction and the combined correction of astigmatism and
presbyopia more commonly.

These experts expect improvements in contact lens comfort and reduced
"drying" with improved contact lenses. Contact lenses which are antimicrobial or
have surfaces that resist deposition and infection are expected. Some believe contact lens
use will be the norm for teens and presbyopes, and refractive surgery will be more
commonplace for those in between these age groups. Extended wear beyond one year is
mentioned as well.

Randy McLaughlin, O.D., M.S., speculates an increase in the fitting of specialty
lenses, especially for medical purposes and predicts a decline in simple spherical lens
fits because of refractive surgery. Ed Bennett, O.D., M.S., predicts bifocal RGP fitting
will increase due to consumer demand and as practitioners become more comfortable fitting
them. Glenda Secor, O.D., expects growth in the extended wear toric and bifocal
modalities.

Summary

The tension between soft toric and RGP lens use will continue into the next century.
Whether there will be enough practitioners who believe in the value of RGPs or soft torics
will prove even more successful as they have improved immensely over the past decades is
yet to be seen. There will also be ongoing tension between one-day disposable and extended
wear lenses playing out the ultimate in safe contact lens wear versus the ultimate in
convenient contact lens wear. A revolution in bifocal contact lenses may even be underway.

We've tried to bring you the news and views of contact lenses on these pages for nearly
25 years. In the 1970s, a number of major corporations entered the industry which, in the
1960s and before, was not influenced by major international corporations. Since Contact
Lens Forum started in 1976 and Contact Lens Spectrum was founded in 1986, there
have been numerous major corporations and contact lenses which have come and gone.

Those who are gone include (just to name a few) Union Corp., 3M, Dow Corning, DuPont,
Syntex, Revlon and others. Lenses which have not survived include Silcon silicone
elastomer and silicone resin (Dow Corning), and the Advent perfluoroether lens (3M). The
contact lens field is competitive and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

As we complete the year 1999, we know that contact lenses are better and safer than
ever before. They have been successfully used in war, in outer space, in sports, for
cosmetic use or for everyday use as an alternative to spectacles and refractive surgery,
and in the care of patients who cannot see optimally without them. More people on the
planet wear them than ever and there will be continued growth in the number of wearers. We
have the best to date in safer extended wear with silicone-hydrogels pending 30 day FDA
approval and the best to date in safety with one-day disposable soft lens use. Increasing
numbers of patients must be fitted with these modalities if the contact lens wearer base
is to grow. Keeping patients in contact lenses will require better understanding of
contact lens comfort and "drying," in addition to a better basic understanding
of dry eye in general.

=
5% with single vision contact lenses and reading glasses (the remainder are in spectacles)

Expect your CL practice to change = increase 75%

decrease
21%

These respondents are 66% optometrists, 9% ophthalmologists, 19% opticians and 6%
technicians. They are 42% in solo practice, 20% in group practices, 14% independent
affiliate of a retail corporation, 8% employed by an OD, 7% employed by an MD, and 6%
employed by a retail corporation. They have been in practice an average of 17.6 years and
72% are male (down from 79% in 1998).

Experts Speak of the Past and Future of Contact Lenses

There are many profitable years yet ahead in the contact lens field, but not with the
pizzaz of the past decades. But I see the contact lens field shrinking by the year 2020
(how about that for a coincidence)?

-- Carl Moore, Chairman, RGP Committee, CLMA

The original hydrogel lenses were followed by many others with novel chemistry and
ultrathin and high water content lenses catalyzed the development of many other lenses,
including the recent silicone-hydrogels. The outcome of the current trend of increasing
wear to one month or longer without removing the lens is difficult to predict.

The growing attraction of interdisciplinary scientists to the field such as Irv Fatt,
Steve Klyce, Brian Tighe, Buddy Ratner and Miguel Refojo adds scientific leverage to the
contact lens enterprise. In the future, contact lenses will remain a significant option
for the management of refractive error, but with greater compatibility.

-- Richard M. Hill, O.D., Ph.D., Dean Emeritus, The Ohio State
University College of Optometry

The greatest advance in the last century was the use of soft gas transmissible
materials. In the next century contact lenses will become obsolete except in special
instances. But, there will be a period when surface wetting properties will advance with
the newer materials.

-- C. Montague Ruben, FRCS, FRCOph. DOMS (England)

Our development of aspheric multifocal RGP and soft contact lenses and being mentored
by Dr. David Volk were my most important events in the past decade. Lasik refractive
surgery will not eliminate contact lenses just as contact lenses did not replace
spectacles. Presbyopic patients will seek aspheric multifocal soft contact lenses to
improve post-operative qualitative vision.

-- Joe Goldberg, O.D.

There will be greater growth in the contact lens field in the next century due to
increased interest in vision correction driven by laser surgery and more extended wear due
to safer materials and the customized fitting due to new instrumentation.

-- Carl Sassano, COO, Bausch & Lomb

The most important event to date has been disposable contact lenses. RGPs will become a
specialty item and laser correction will replace most contact lenses. -- Duane Tracy

The introduction of disposable lenses was significant and lenses will become monthly
replacement for all types including torics and multifocals. -- David Geffen, O.D.

In the next century, we will have near perfect extended wear and the demise of LASIK as
it is performed today. -- Brien Holden, Ph.D.

After 10 or 15 years of daily disposable and continuous wear, I believe refractive
surgery will replace contact lenses as an alternative to spectacles in more affluent
cultures. RGPs will be used for special situations. Perhaps contact lenses will be the
optical correction for the poor.

-- Craig Norman, COT, FCLSA

In the future, we will gain the knowledge and technology to make lenses that will be
worn for months on end without removal and that will enhance vision to levels higher than
are possible with today's contact lenses. -- Sheldon Wechsler, O.D., M.S.

If contact lenses are to continue as a main avenue of refractive correction, the
development of a genuinely full-time wear lens which can be placed in the eye at the
initial fitting and left there without necessary removal for a genuinely significant time,
and the development of a soft lens material that permits sufficient movement without
discomfort across the cornea so that a translating bifocal could be fitted will be
required. -- Irv Borish, O.D.

In the next century, I think contact lenses will be accepted more and more. There's
been a tremendous improvement in materials and techniques, and a new generation of lenses.

-- Newton Wesley, O.D.

The soft hydrogel lens transformed a limited group of wearers into about 30 million.

-- Mel Remba, O.D.

With the development of soft contact lenses, we were able to fit more people due to
factors of comfort and oxygen transmissibility.

-- William Fleischman, O.D.

A major event is reduced cost specialty lenses including soft torics and bifocals.

-- Bruce Onofrey, O.D., RPH

In the next century, I look forward to a lens of hybrid material with high
transmissibility, a biocompatible surface, the optics of an RGP and comfort of a soft
lens, to be disposed of monthly.

-- Tom Quinn, O.D., M.S.

Soft lenses introduced many new materials. In the future, we'll have better 30-day
materials and bifocals.